Bucci is brilliant, plain and simple. With this post defending Sidney Crosby to the millions of hockey haters out there, he has just surpassed the great Barry Melrose in my book. People wrote in to him saying that it ‘ruined’ the Olympic experience to have Sidney Crosby score the game winner. Someone even said that Canada would have still won the Gold without Crosby. Bucci’s response was so spot on, it’s crazy. Give this man Bettman’s job and call it a day.
“I watch parts of just about every NHL game. I don’t watch “Lost” or “Dancing with the Stars” or “Idol.” I watch NHL hockey every night I’m home. These are my observations:
1. Crosby rarely whines. In fact, he is one of the more subdued players in the NHL. That is a fact. If you believe otherwise, you haven’t seen a large sample of his games this season.
2. To call him overrated is as implausibly mind-boggling as calling Lady Gaga underrated. He wins faceoffs, he scores goals, he is the best passer in the NHL, he backchecks, he’s completely committed to his craft, he carries his franchise’s media load and has since he was 18. No one has had more asked of him over the past five years than Crosby.
3. Crosby has a scoring title, an MVP award, a Stanley Cup and an overtime gold medal-winning goal. He’s 22. He’s good. Try to enjoy him like the NBA fans who aren’t Cavaliers fans enjoy LeBron James and baseball fans who aren’t Cardinals fans enjoy Albert Pujols.
I have a difficult time detesting anything in life except Michael Bolton covering Otis Redding songs. That’s it.
In the inaugural season of the MAHSHL (Mid-American High School Hockey League) the Springfield Spirit won the Championship.
Quarters
Semi’s
Final
Champions
2) Rockhurst
6) KC Saints
2) Rockhurst
3) Witchita
3) Witchita
7) KC Stars
2) Witchita
4) Springfield Spirit
4) SGF Spirit
4) SGF Spirit
5) St. Joe Griffons
4) SGF Spirit
1) Jeff City
1) Jeff City
9) Springdale
Quarter Finals vs St. Joe – After getting up 3-1 in the 1st period, we really let down and allowed St. Joe to come back and tie it 3-3 at the end of regulation. No scoring in overtime lead to a shootout. Austin Purdy went 1st and scored, followed by Greg Altoonian who also scored. Spirit goaltender Nate Fairbank stopped the final St. Joe shot to advance Springfield to the Semi’s.
Semi Finals vs Jefferson City - #1 seeded Jeff City got off to a slow start as the Spirit came out strong in the first period. The Spirit never trailed in the game and with a game winning goal from Taylor Fairbank, won 5-4 sending Springfield to the Finals.
Championship Game vs Witchita - Trailing 3-1 in the 3rd period the Spirit never gave up. They scored 3 unanswered goals to take the lead 4-3 with 3 minutes left. Witchita rallied and scored with 2 minutes left to tie the game 4-4. The game went to overtime and 24 seconds in leading scorer Brian Otradovec netted a sudden death goal to seal the League Championship for the Spirit.
It was a historic season for the Spirit coming into the tournament seeded 4th out of 10 teams. To read the official write-up click here.
Eagle River, Wisconsin (February 12th-14th 2010) – Team Jack Daniel’s
Game 1 vs Dirty Beavers - Team JD came out unorchestrated and confused. Not accustom to playing pond hockey we were consistently in the wrong places at the wrong times. Due to a higher skill level we managed to keep the game close and ended up winning. WIN 16-12
Game 2 vs Mandy Badhattens – Again Team JD played a soft first half, but picked it up in the second to win by a final of 11-6. WIN
Game 3 vs Chicago Magic – A very emotional and hard fought game vs the Magic proved difficult for team JD. LOSS
After 3 games and a record of 2-1 team JD found themselves struggling for a playoff spot. With a +3 goal differential team JD found their way into the playoffs beating out another team with a +2 goal diff. So we made the 8th and final spot by one goal.
Game 4 – #1 seeded Goose Island vs #8 seed Team Jack Daniel’s – 1st round of the playoffs: The game was a rush from start to finish. With 3 min left the score was 7-7 and a goal with 2 min left gave Goose Island an 8-7 lead. JD was never able to tie it up and lost in the first round
In the finals, the Chicago Magic played Goose Island with Goose Island winning by one goal. It was a very close race and team JD will come back next year to claim the gold.
MLX Skate Company (@mlxskates) - According to their website, the MLX Skate Company is based out of Las Vegas and founded by speed skaters. Like FUBU they claim to be FSBS “for skaters, by skaters”. The company was first brought to my attention by a hockey insider friend via Twitter (@coopgator). After digging deeper I found NHL pros such as Dustin Byfuglien, Max Talbot & Evgeni Malkin are using their skates. The skates are unbranded, with plain black and silver markings and what looks-like a carbon fiber toe. Visually they appear to be similar to an unbranded version of the Easton S7. I even read a rumor that MLX is Mario Lemieux’s skate company. (Malkin, Talbot and Fedotenko: all Penguins)
The Gordie Howe Hatrick is the most impressive single game tri-fecta achievable in all of sports. One goal, one assist & one fight all in the same night.
The Competition
Basketball’s Triple-Double – Getting double digits (10+) points in 3 different categories (points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks ect) in one game. A very impressive feat for one guy, but really a player just needs to be good, not necessarily an all-around player. I equate this to getting a regular 3 goal hattrick in hockey. You simply need skill.
Baseball’s Grand Slam – Hitting a homerun with runners on all 3 bags. Impressive for sure, but really just a timing thing. A homerun is the same whether there are 3 players on base or 0. So really it is just being clutch when you’re up to bat. This is comparable to scoring in a shootout.
Gordie Howe
When you compare, there’s really no comparison. What makes the Gordie Howe Hat trick so remarkable is how hard it is to be such a well-rounded player. One must fully comprehend several different facets of the game in order to achieve such a distinct honor. Guys who can fight usually can’t score and vice versa. It’s takes an incredibly special athlete to do both.
In hockey, winning is tough and for a team to be successful they need many different components such as speed, heart, grit, talent and leadership. For example: In 90-91 Brett Hull scored 86 goals for the St. Louis Blues. Adam Oates only had 25 but he also had 90 assists. There are teams that sign guys strictly because they are individually talented goal-scorers, playmakers, or fighters. But when you get all 3 in one solid package, that’s when you’ve struck gold.
An under-10 game ends in a bench-clearing brawl between the Northern Star and the Penguins (9-year-old Sidney Crosby probably had someone do his fighting for him). Per the YouTube description: “Truly a rare record the NHL not always witness.” – Deadspin.com
In a summons filed January 15th, 2010, Warrior Sports has named Winnwell Clean Hockey as the primary defendant in a 15:1051 Trademark Infringement case, and with good reason! These logos are almost identical. Especially if you look at the “W” in the wordmark ‘Warrior’ on the stick vs the circled logo.
